


Finn Appreciation Week Entries

by saltylikecrait



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Drabble, Ficlet, Gen, No Romance, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-20 16:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14265150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: A collection of drabbles and oneshots.





	1. Free

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of drabbles and oneshots from Finn Appreciation Week on Tumblr. I will update as the week goes on.

The first time it occurred to him that he was free to make his own choices was when he was getting a meal from the Resistance’s supply of rations.

It wasn’t that he was thrilled to eat prepackaged rations – he had really been looking forward to eating real food – but the Resistance no longer had kitchen facilities to make even their small numbers. They had moved all the supplies they could on to the _Millennium Falcon_ and explained to everyone that one ration bar had enough calories to sustain a human for a half-day.

And the choices weren’t many (there were only three flavors), but he decided if he wanted to try a citrus-tasting bar, a sweet fruit flavor, or some bar with a rich, sweet flavor he had heard some of the Resistance talking about with longing, well, then he could choose whatever he wanted.

And so he decided that over the course of the next day and a half, he’d try all three – an act of rebellion to himself.

Then he wondered where else he could make choices in mundane day-to-day tasks.

The next choice he found he was free to make was where he wanted to bunk. He hadn’t slept in almost two days. The last time he was physically asleep was when he was in a coma. But now his body was becoming sluggish and unable to make clear thoughts.

He could find his own place to sleep, away from everyone and the porgs. But he knew that Rey and Poe had made a sleeping spot in a niche in the _Falcon’s_ cargo space.

They were waiting for him.

Finn was free to make choices now. It was the first time he fully realized that freedom.

But now, he chose to be here with the Resistance, between two of the people he cared about the most.


	2. Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finn Appreciation Week entry #2 - Theme: Flight

“Finn buddy, you passed your sims just fine. Rey even said so. You’re gonna be fine.”

Poe looked on as Finn paced nervously back and forth as he did his pre-flight check for the third time.

“I just wanna make sure that everything is right before I even attempt to fly this thing,” Finn murmured as he looked the Y-wing over.

He sighed when he realized he couldn’t stall any longer. Shooting blasters was something he knew how to do and could do well enough to be comfortable (unless it involved shooting beings), but flying was Rey and Poe’s territory. Finn knew they would always fly circles around him, but he realized that if he wanted to help them on missions more, he’d have to learn to fly on his own.

Poe would fly alongside him this mission, hence the Y-wing instead of Poe’s preferred X-wings. He would be a passenger and instructor.

BB-8 wpuld not join them either. Instead, an older model that had experience with flight instruction, the green and white BB-7S, was loaded up into the copilot droid slot.

Once situated, Finn took a deep breath and prepared for flight.

“I can do this. I can do this,” he repeated to himself as Poe talked him through the controls.

The engines roared to life and Finn listened as Poe instructed him for take-off.

“BB-7S, are you ready?” Finn called out on his comms.

The droid beeped in affirmative. Finn knew it was time.

One last deep breath as he reminded himself that Rey first actual flight was on the _Millennium Falcon_ while trying to escape TIEs. If she could do that, then surely Finn could successfully do a flight with Poe as an instructor.

“I can do this. I can do this.”

The Y-wing lifted in the air and stayed airborne.

“You did it, Finn!”

Perhaps this wasn’t such a bad idea after all, Finn thought as he grinned widely.


	3. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Finn Appreciation Week entry #3 - Theme: Love.
> 
> Please note that none of the pairings in this fic are intended as romantic.

It didn’t take long for Finn to realize that love comes in many shapes. The First Order told him that his only love was for the cause, affection of any form for others was a weakness.

He remembered how Phasma implied that his love for Slip – his inability to not care – was his weakness.

Later, he understood that wasn’t his weakness, but his strength and the First Order was afraid of the stormtroopers loving anything but the Order and a chance to die for them.

* * *

At times, Finn felt like he owed Poe a lot. Back on the _Finalizer,_ he believed that Poe was simply a means of escape and not much else. He had no idea that Poe would be the first person to recognize FN-2187 as an individual.

The name Finn was proof of that recognition.

And Finn loved Poe: the first person that he was allowed to call a friend, the man who gave him a chance to know a life outside the First Order. They fought together, side by side, on the ground or in the air. Brothers-in-arms.

Finn had felt camaraderie with the stormtroopers, but with Poe, Finn felt a real sense of loyalty that the Order never quite installed into his mind.

* * *

Sometimes, Captain Phasma had been called a mother to her troops. She was the first idea that Finn had of what a mother was: ever watchful of the cadets, observing them and picking out their strengths and weaknesses. She seemed to even take pride in the cadets that accomplished greatness in the name of the First Order.

But Finn learned that was just a face she had put on for the sake of herself and her own survival.

And then he got to know Leia Organa, a woman who had known loss her entire life, and found that for the first time, he understood what a mother was. He knew she grieved even when her face showed nothing but steely determination. Leia knew that the child she had raised as her son no longer existed, but every time she looked at holos of Kylo Ren and all the terrible things he had done, she grieved within herself, believing that somehow, somewhere, she failed as a mother. For what was worse punishment for a parent than to fight the child they gave birth to and loved, who turned into a monster?

Finn thought about his mother – if she was still alive – and wondered if she still loved him and still thought of the child that had been snatched away from her.

* * *

Rey and Finn often found that they were two sides of the same coin.

Sure, their upbringings were different – Finn had been surrounded by children his own age but wasn’t allowed to establish close bonds with any of them; Rey was a dictionary example of loneliness – but this new world they were living in had so much to offer. It was almost expected that they would want to try things together because nearly every experience was a new one.

The best part was that, even when missions in the Resistance went wrong or being the last Jedi was too great a weight, Finn and Rey could still find something to smile about when they were together.

And if Rey once told Finn not to take her hand, well, she wasn’t saying that now. Half the time, she was the one reaching for his.

* * *

And Finn learned what love was not.

Rey also held his thoughts when Kylo Ren was in the picture. It became plainly obvious that the Knight of Ren had developed an obsession with her since Starkiller. After Rey told him what had happened in their brief period of separation, Finn became fearful for her.

There were tip-offs that had turned out to be traps for Rey. Close calls that threatened their permanent separation. Kylo Ren did not take rejection lightly, and he wanted to see that the Jedi would never rise again. Finn hated the idea of a future where Rey did not exist. The thought of losing her at the hands of a man who once had everything that Finn and Rey had ever wanted – a home, a family, _love_ – was unbearable to even entertain.

* * *

Rose had not been the easiest to come to love. At times, Finn found that they were almost too different in upbringing and that created a barrier between them. Misunderstandings lead to arguments, arguments lead to anger and (occasionally) tears.

It was after an argument over a supply run that Finn realized that Rose loved him enough to compromise her own set of beliefs. A planet had begged the Resistance for relief from the First Order and Rose was ready to jump in and help them, understanding exactly what life under a First Order blockade was like. But Finn thought something seemed off. The tactics that the representative claimed to witness did not seem like typical First Order tactics. He requested further investigation. Rose was visibly upset at first and Finn knew that she thought that Finn was being difficult. Waiting any longer could mean countless more deaths, and this time they would be at fault. But then Rose reluctantly agreed.

It turned out to be a trap to lure the Resistance into a harsh environment where the First Order would then aim to end them once and for all.

Later, when Rose told him it took all of her will to control her emotional reaction to the situation in order to not burst into anger at Finn’s response, Finn knew that Rose loved him and he loved her for that.

* * *

It was in the Resistance that for the first time, Finn found himself surrounded by people who loved him and expected in return.

He had finally found his family.


	4. Home

Unlike most of the Resistance, Finn had no home to return to when the war was over.

_Home_ was a foreign concept to him. For most beings, home was a physical location; a place where family was at.

But Finn had neither.

And then he remembered that Rey was like him. She might have lived on Jakku for years, but _home_ was not a word she associated the hostile junkyard planet with.

“Let’s go home, Finn,” she said after a mission had been completed. She held out her hand for him to take.

He took it and she lead him to the _Millennium Falcon_ where Poe, Rose, and Chewbacca waited for them.

Suddenly, he had realized in the midst of all the chaos that war had brought, they both had found a home after all.


	5. Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Finn Appreciation Week entry #5 - Theme: Hero

“I’m not a hero,” he told Rose when he first met her, and at the time, he believed that.

It took time for him to understand what a hero meant to the Resistance. Back in the First Order, a hero was a stormtrooper that died on the front lines, standing for the ideals that Finn learned to despise.

After finally coming to terms that he had indeed done something heroic on Starkiller, Finn realized that he became a sort of a legendary figure to some in the Resistance. Many of them had a reason to fight, having lost homes and loved ones to the First Order. To them, a stormtrooper fighting against the regime that he was raised by had been nearly an impossible thought.

But then, Finn showed up at the Resistance’s doorstep. He did, of course, only really help the Resistance for Rey’s sake, but his thoughts that Starkiller might have been impossible to destroy had also proven to be false that day.

And really, that had been the last attempt at heroics that Finn had ever intended to do. He was really tired of fighting. That was all he had ever known.

But he knew that he had to keep fighting, because it was the right thing to do.


	6. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Finn Appreciation Week entry #6 - Theme: Hope
> 
> I enjoyed writing these drabbles/ficlets and I hope that I will get to take part in more of these weeks. I also really loved seeing what other people contributed to the ocassion.

“The Resistance will live on,” Leia told him, “as long as there is hope.”

The First Order told him that hope was foolish and for the weak. Crushing the hope of the Order’s enemies was a goal of conquering. To crush hope meant to stop resistance.

Yet Finn resisted and here he was.

There were days where he wondered why he continued to get up to fight. In his short life, all he had known was the life of a soldier. Surely, he had earned his right to lay down his blaster and walk away to let others deal with the First Order.

That was when he realized that hope was not just an emotion. Hope required a goal of some sort that would help him push on.

A galaxy without the First Order chasing him, placing a death sentence on his head, was the goal he was set upon. It gave him hope that one day, he could live a quiet life with the friends that had become his family. Maybe he would have children of his own or have a job that didn’t revolve around war.

And that image inspired him to push on.


End file.
